


Lend me your eyes I can change what you see

by illyx



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen, If You Squint - Freeform, Vague Jonsa mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 17:59:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11856726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illyx/pseuds/illyx
Summary: "But Jon wasn’t here, nor Father, his face still clear in her mind as it tumbled down from his body, bloody and heavy; instead she was left with Bran, who was so unlike the brother she knew once that every time she thought about it, surprisingly, a pang of hurt shot through her at the remembrance of the boy he used to be.And then there was her sister. Lady Stark, she ought to call her that. "Spoilers from 7x05 and on.





	Lend me your eyes I can change what you see

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! This is my first ever fic, after reading countless fanfictions in various fandoms for many years these last GoT episodes spurred my will to start writing about my babies, Arya and Sansa.  
> Honestly D&D did a terrible job with their scenes, making Arya say the things we all heard Sansa's haters saying.  
> This is how I make amends. Enjoy.
> 
> P.S.: English isn't by all means my first language. Any critique and suggestion is greatly aprreciated.

The winds outside howled restlessly against the gray stones of the castle;everything was turning gray recently, the days were getting shorter and shorter and Arya wasn’t sure when exactly the pale sun left and the night settled in. Sometimes she could swear a different kind of howl could be heard, a wilder one, and oh, how she longed to run and hunt and be free as Nymeria with her pack. But here she was, with her pack indeed. After all the travels, all the pain, all her disguises, at last reunited with her littermates.  
Still, the most important member missing, Jon, she thought sweetly, I could show him how good, how deadly I’ve become with Needle, he would be proud. He would ruffle my hair like Father used to and hug me tight. But Jon wasn’t here, nor Father, his face still clear in her mind as it tumbled down from his body, bloody and heavy; instead she was left with Bran, who was so unlike the brother she knew once that every time she thought about it, surprisingly, a pang of hurt shot through her at the remembrance of the boy he used to be.

And then there was her sister. Lady Stark, she ought to call her that.  
Of course a proper lady she was, gracious and courteous and well-spoken, she favoured the warmest and largest rooms in the keep and, even if she no longer donned the Southron-like dresses she remembered, the thick, dark wool garments she now wore impeccably hugged her curves. Lady Stark was a true beauty she heard someone say on the road to Winterfell, that ruling along the White Wolf, there was a Red one.  
Arya snorted at that, how was her sister, whose sole wish was to leave Winterfell and be married to some dumb Southron Lord and never look back, be considered a wolf?  
Married twice, first to a Lion, the Imp, and then to the Bolton bastard. How could someone trust her to do the interest of House Stark and the North and not solely her own? How could Jon trust her?

As she restlessly sat on the edge of the bed sharpening Needle -she learned not to rely on sleep too much during her training- she heard noises coming from across the hall, at first she thought that it was the snowstorm infuriating outside and her mind was playing tricks on her, but when the high keening sounds persisted she had to go and see what it was. 

The corridor was dark, save for a few feeble torches, but she could move just as she would in broad daylight and no, she was not mistaken, the sounds came from the Lady’s chambers.  
Maybe her sister was warming her bed with that slimy excuse of a man, Littlefinger, so they could plot together to overthrow Jon, she imagined disgusted.  
Except there was no man in the room, no one besides Sansa who was tossing around and crying out unintelligible pleas.  
Just as she was retiring silently, Sansa woke with a start clutching so hard at her linen shift she could tear it apart. Her eyes scanned obsessively over the room and suddenly the blue of an icy torrent met her grey orbits.

“What are you doing here?” she said alarmed.

“I heard some noises and thought you were having fun with Petyr” Arya spat out.

She watched attentively as her sister closed her eyes and rubbed her fingers over them as to erase the images they bore. 

“Please Arya. Leave” she whispered, her voice broken.

She ignored her “I wonder..what could you be possibly dream of to have you scream like that? Ruining your dress? Finishing lemon cakes? Or maybe leaving the title of King to Jon?”

At this Sansa’s eyes snapped open and she slowly rose from her bed, Arya was waiting for an answer, curious to see what she would do next.  
Her sister towered before her, so close she could feel her breath on her head and with a stare so icy she had to take a step back.

“No. Now you’re not leaving. You’re staying here and listen to all I tell you. When I’m finished you can do all you want, you can kill me if you choose so, you can leave and never come back. But first, I beg of you, listen.”

“Why, because the Lady of Winterfell commands it?”

“Yes, as it seems you’re not willing to listen to your sister.”

Arya was willing to hear what Sansa had to say. She had listened before, but she thought her pretty words to be just lies. She had lied about many things years before, Joffrey and Nymeria and poor Mycha.  
This once she conceded. Although she was sure nothing will come out of it.

“Alright. I’m all ears, milady.”

Sansa sighed and moved forward to light a candle and just as she thought she was going to begin talking, she started to unlace her shift, instead. Before she could utter a word her sister was naked before her, she quickly turned her back to her. The newly lit candle sent waves of dancing light across the expanse of her back.  
The first thing Arya noticed were small signs, almost as if someone had used her to mark the passing days with a sharp blade, but then her gaze shifted to a hideous scar that ran from one side to the other. The skin was pink and tight and she wondered how could she even sit on a chair without feeling pain. She knew what it felt to have your skin sliced open, and the edges of the cut slowly closing and itching. She wasn’t new to the feeling.

Sansa picked up her shift and redressed swiftly.

“I trust you had a look at my back. I have marks on the front as well, but I’m not letting you see them.” she stated cooly.

Arya wondered if this Sansa would ever regard her with something different from this carefully guarded and icy tone, just as they did in the crypts when they embraced as sisters should and she could have wept from how she still smelled like Sansa, sweet and floral and with a hint of wilderness she now assumed came from staying with Ghost.

“Sansa…” she began, not sure what to say.

“Oh it’s Sansa, now, isn’t it? Well, it’s a start.”

“I’m sorry… I assumed… I thought the stories were exaggerating…”

“I was right. Words were never your strong point, my last chance was to make you see.  
To answer your question my nightmares change face every night, sometimes it’s Father’s head on a pike that I see, other times I imagine Grey Wind’s head sawed to Robb’s body,or Mother’s screams as they sliced her throat.” Arya shivered, then. She had been so close then. "But the ones that make me scream like tonight are always about him.”

“The Bolton bastard?”

“Yes. Ramsay. He did what he liked with my body, not my face, mind you. He liked me pretty. He made made me stay in the coldest room in Winterfell, no windows, no fire. Just my thoughts and a bunch a bloody sheets.Sometimes I thought it was worse than the nights themselves. I could taste the iron of my blood in the air. Night after night he wanted me to cry out so loudly that the whole castle heard. He’s dead now, but he continues to make me scream. His bones are rotting and still, he holds that power over me.”

“You could use some milk of the poppy, it could help” she offered

Sansa snorted “If I drank the amount of milk of the poppy that allowed me to sleep peacefully I wouldn’t be able to rule Winterfell and I cannot afford that. Jon trusted me and he left me in charge, he was the first one to believe that I could be useful, a good ruler and gave me the power to do so.”

If Jon trusted her, then maybe ...

“Arya I need you to listen carefully, please. I know how it is to feel, and to be, powerless, too well perhaps. I was powerless in King’s landing, I was powerless here in Winterfell, our home. Now I’m not, I may not be able to wield a sword like you or Brienne or Jon” she said with something resembling a smile “But you see, my armor is my courtesy and my sword diplomacy.”

If her sister showed the signs of her most painful memories, then she could do the same. Slowly she removed her loose shirt uncovering her most recent, and largest scar, just below her binded breasts. If Sansa was disgusted or surprised she couldn’t tell, but when her Tully blue eyes met her own she saw an immense ocean of sadness.

“I don’t want your pity” she quickly said.

“Nor do I want yours. All I desire is that we understand each other, it may be difficult but as father said the lone wolf dies but the pack survives and Gods be good Arya I need my sister!” she pleaded as she took hold of her hand. “Now more than ever, now that Bran isn’t Bran anymore and Jon has gone South”. Her brow furrowed and said “I told you some parts of my story, I don’t expect you to do the same, but if you ever want to I’m here and I will try my best to understand. I promise.”

Somehow, in this few minutes with her sister that stretched before her like years, it was the first time she really felt home. She wasn’t entirely trusting of Sansa yet, but she now understood she wasn’t the same girl she left Winterfell with her on that thrice damned day, just as she wasn’t.

“You know” Sansa began “you might think it strange but Jon and I, we get along quite nicely. Of course he’s as stubborn and sickeningly noble as any Stark man…”  
Arya then frowned “No, let me continue. He may be too honourable for his own good but in these dreary months we have found comfort in each other, we talk and we counsel and we try to protect one another, however futile that might be. We quarrel a lot, too. The rumors you heard are true. Nevertheless I care about him and I would never plan to overthrow him. You must know that.” 

 

Sansa warily took her small hands in her own delicate ones.

“If you see me talking to Littlefinger” she continued “it’s not because I trust him, only a fool would, but because we need the army of the Vale and cannot afford to lose their support. Littlefinger time will come, but not now. I know how to handle him.”

Surprisingly, she believed her sister. “Does Jon know about your scars?” she said with a hoarse whisper.

Sansa’s eyes widened just for a moment, before she could wear once again her controlled mask “He’s never seen them, if you mean that. And do not mention this to anybody, Arya. I beg you. Surely he suspects my body is spoiled in some ways and imagines what I suffered within these walls” she said with a hollow voice “that’s why he gave up the Lord’s chambers that I had offered him. He thought that these were the walls where I should feel the safest and they are, in fact. For this and many other things I’m grateful to Jon.”

Sansa got up from her chair and sat on the bed.

“Now, I should go to bed. Tomorrow will be a long day. If you want to keep talking we can, although I fear I might feel quite drowsy, if you don’t then you too should go to sleep. I understand that you now have some strange powers and act like nothing can touch you but a good night sleep has never hurt anybody.” she said as she tucked her covers to her chest.

“Sansa”

“Yes?” a long pause followed, Sansa looking expectantly.

“Can I sleep with you?” she uttered almost sheepishly.

Her head snap up from the pillows and looked as if she might weep “You can”.

Arya settled behind her. She could see the red, smooth cascade of hair spread across the pillow and the rise and fall of her chest as she mouthed “Goodnight” from above her shoulder. She listened to her sister steady breathing and thought that for the first time in years she was home.

 

Arya felt something cool and wet touch her face, her eyes snapped up instantly and hands searching for Needle. But before her there wasn’t an enemy, but a pair of red eyes amidst snow white fur. Ghost. “Hey boy” she called him while he gingerly licked her hand. 

A greyish light entered through the windows, it must have been early morning. Arya could perceive a faint singing of the few brave birds that remained.

“You can come Ghost” she heard from behind. The giant beast needn’t be told twice, jumping on the bed and curling at her and Sansa’s feet.  
Her sister sat up and began to pet him “You miss him, don’t you Ghost?” she whispered absentmindedly, stroking through his fur. “ I feel like Jon would think I’m pampering him, but he deserves it, right Ghostie?” she said in a sing-sang voice.

“On the way home” Arya began “I met Nymeria” 

Sansa turned to look at her “Really? How was she? Why haven’t you brought her with you?”

“She was enormous and fierce and wild. She led a huge pack of wolves in the Riverlands. I think she recognized me, but she wasn’t the same Nymeria I knew. Her place was there.” she stated. It really hurt, not being able to be together with her direwolf. Not mine anymore, she reminded herself.

“I’m sorry about that day when we were travelling. There is not a day that I don’t think about it.” Sansa said remorsefully, looking at her hands and toying with the hem of her shift. “I was a brat, but you already know that. Joffrey was already terrible, but I was stupid enough to oversee it. And I lost Lady for it. I shouldn’t have lied. I’m sorry for how I treated you before. I really wish we could behave as sisters should now, that we could learn to be in each other company.”

Arya felt something inside her break, then. Like a spring thaw, even if Winter was here.

“I’m sorry for how I treated you. I assumed a lot of things and I shouldn’t have. I don’t know anything about ruling, how to treat these entitled lordlings, they would be better off with a sword in their bellies, if you asked me” she grumbled.

At that her sister smiled and Arya swore the men she encountered on the road North were right. Her sister was strikingly beautiful and after all, a wolf, too.

“This evening I’m gathering with some women, we ought to sew as many warm clothes as we can before we all freeze to death, will you be joining us?”

At that Arya made a face of pure horror as she stammered “I… ah…I’m not really…”

Sansa, with twinkling eyes, erupted into a laugh so joyful she hadn’t in her to be angry one bit.

“Oh Arya, you may be a ruthless assassin by now, but your opinion on needlework is as dim as ever” she managed to say between fits of giggles.

“Ohi! You’re lucky you won’t have to stitch my work out of my breeches!”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed!  
> If you did: comment.  
> If you didn't: comment.


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